


A Lesson in Reality

by WhumpTown



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Canon Compliant, Not Spider-Man: Far From Home Compliant, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Doesn't Know What's Real, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:20:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23573767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhumpTown/pseuds/WhumpTown
Summary: Request from Pretendimacarrot:Okok hear me out.Peter basically dealing with ptsd after the hallucinations that beck gave him. Not knowing what's real and what's not. I can't find very many stories dealing with the aftermath of the hallucinations. I feel like that would have a pretty big impact on how a person perceives reality.
Relationships: Happy Hogan & Peter Parker, May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 6
Kudos: 131





	A Lesson in Reality

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pretendimacarrot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pretendimacarrot/gifts).



> It's been way too long since I wrote some good old Iron Dad shit...
> 
> Enjoy~

“Easy, easy.” Happy’s arms feel impossibly safe. His body is large and warm. Peter sinks into the bodyguards hold, burying his face in the man’s suit jacket. He’s not sure what’s real. His mind is a trap door of lies but if he closes his eyes, he knows this is Happy. The man smells like Happy, like coffee and detergent. 

Beck, he can’t fake that. 

A sob breaks from Peter’s mouth, releasing all of his anxiety. He can feel Happy, smell him, and it’s so nice to know someone is real. “It’s you,” Peter whispers, face pushed into Happy’s shoulder. “It’s really you.”

Happy looks down at the kid in his arms. He’s beat to hell, trembling. Happy’s never seen him like this. Peter Parker is a beam of laughter, smiling and lifting the mood no matter how bad things seem. It breaks his heart to see the kid beaten down so much. “Of course it’s me.” He’s beyond confused now but he’s almost used to a certain level of confusion when it comes to dealing with this kid. 

Happy pats Peter’s back, awkward given that he’s not sure what to do when the kids not being so overzealously ecstatic. “Let’s get you home, yeah?” 

Home. Peter closes his eyes, tears falling hot down his cheek. He sniffles, “yes, please.”

\--------------

Peter swallows thickly around the lump in his throat,” pl-please…” He takes two quick steps away from Aunt May, away from the hug she’s trying to give him. His bottom lip trembles and he nearly cries out as her hand touches his bicep. “Don’t.”

Aunt May stops in her tracks. Her hand extended. She frowns, concern etched in her tired eyes. “Peter?” 

He shakes his head, hands covering his ears. It might not be her. What if it’s not her? 

“Peter,” she touches his shoulders, pulling him against her chest. His brain screams _It’s not her! It’s not her!_. She holds him as his body shakes and his tears soak through her shirt. “Baby,” she soothes his crazy curls, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. “What’s wrong?”

_It’s not her! It’s not her!_

Lavender and hospital disinfectant. 

Peter closes his eyes. Breathe, he reminds himself. He’d walked Tony through anxiety attacks a hundred times. Grounding. He takes a deep breath, hands hurting as he grips Aunt May’s shirt tight in his fist. What can he smell? Lavender. The soft lavender of the perfume Aunt May wears. Hospital Disinfectant. Aunt May always smells like the hospital, she wears it home with her. Coffee. She must have splashed some on her shirt. 

Lavender and hospital disinfectant.

But this is Aunt May. 

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” he whispers, pulling from her grasp to look into her confused eyes. He throws his arms back around her. 

Aunt May shoots daggers at Happy, clearly wanting to know what has happened to her nephew. The man shakes his head, shrugging his shoulders. He motions to Peter and mouths, ‘ _he was like this when I picked him up_ ’. 

Aunt May rubs her hand up and down Peter’s back, hoping to bring him some comfort. Her mind races to figure out how to help him. He needs to rest but at the same time… “Come on, Peter.” She runs her hands through his curls, “let’s go home, sweetheart.”

She guides him, keeping him close as they get back into the car. Peter allows May to pull his head to her lap. He lays in the back seat, sliding in and out of sleep. He wants to relax and fall asleep but he can’t. What if Beck is still alive? What if Beck finds them?

But he fails. May hums softly to him, her fingers running through his hair. He’s out.

His body thrums with anxiety. His mind desperately trying to bring him back but he’s exhausted. Happy and May wake him, forcing him on his feet and down a hallway that seems to go on forever. He’s about to forfeit to submit himself to whining until Happy carries him wherever they’re going when May turns his shoulders.

It’s a hospital. 

They’ve taken him to the hospital.

At the sight of the man sitting in the bed, the air is forced out of Peter’s lungs. Panic swells in his chest, anxiety making his heart beat fast and hard. “No,” he gasps, his hands fly over his eyes. Dead. Tony Stark is dead. He’d heard his heart stop beating, the silence deafening. “No, fuck!” The words tear from his throat, his legs too weak to hold him up. 

Someone catches him under his arms, stopping his body from crashing limply to the ground. He tries to pull away from the hands, it’s all suddenly too much. He can’t breathe. He can’t think. Beck. He was right.

 _“I don’t think you know what’s real, Peter.”_ Beck is in his head. Tony is not here. It’s Beck’s robots, it’s all been Beck’s robots. Did Beck hurt the real Happy and May? A sob wrecks his chest, he can’t be alone. He can’t do this alone. 

_“You are just a scared little kid in a sweatsuit.”_

“No!” He pulls at the ends of his hair. Something has to be real. This can’t all be fake. 

May is alive. 

Happy is alive.

Tony is- _“If you were good enough, maybe Tony would still be alive.”_

Warm. Peter feels warmth envelop his body. 

His eyes pinched shut. He can’t trust his eyes. They fool him. They deceive him. 

There’s a heartbeat under his fingertips, it’s wrong. It’s not steady, a little too fast but Peter feels it. Feels the hand trapping him to skin and a chest. “Breathe in with me.” Peter squeezes his eyes shut tighter. He’s afraid because he knows the voice speaking. “Come on, Pete.” The hand move to the back of Peter’s head. 

His face is in a shoulder and Peter sobs brokenly. 

Tony smelled like motor oil and Irish Springs soap. His hands were heavily calloused and when he would comb his hand through Peter’s hair he would always rustle it at the end.

“You’re not real,” Peter whispers, eyes still shut tight. He refuses to open them, to find a false promise staring back at him. Calling him by his nickname and holding him tight. “You died,” his voice breaks. “I-I… I _heard_ you die. I felt it.” 

There’s a heavy sigh from the chest he’s leaning against. A hand takes his own, urging him to sit up with a shake of a shoulder. Peter refuses to open his eyes but he sits up. “Pete,” the ghost whispers, placing Peter’s hands on it’s face. “It’s me, kiddo.”

Tears fall from Peter’s eyes as he feels over the face. He knows what to look for. On the left side of Tony’s face is a small scar, right near his ear. Tony blew up a bottle in the lab, caught a shard to the face. Peter’s fingers run down the nose, finding it perfectly crooked. Undeniably, Tony’s. “No.”

An arm wraps around him and pulls back into the hug. “I’m right here, kiddo.” Tony’s voice softens, desperate. “Look at me, Pete.”

Peter isn’t sure if he should. He takes in a slow breath and slowly opens his eyes, his lips trembling as he finds Tony, May, and Happy all looking back at him. 

“Oh, Peter.” Aunt May is crying. Tears streaming down her cheeks.

Happy’s eyes are red-rimmed, on the verge of tears himself. 

Beck… 

“Look at me, kid.”

Peter drags his eyes back over to his mentor. Tony’s haggard. He’s scared. The right half of his face is burnt, his right arm missing. He’s alive and Beck couldn’t know that because no one knows Iron Man survived. Just them. 

“Mr. Stark,” Peter lets himself lean forward, drawn into the engineer’s protective hold. “I don’t know what’s real.” He grips Tony’s shirt in his fist, a new set of tears rolling down his face. “I’m-I’m scared.” His breath hitches.

Tony runs his hand down Peter’s back, shushing him gently. “It’s okay,” he promises. “It’s okay, we’ll figure it out.” The first order of business: find out what happened. Second: kick some major ass. But right now, he’s just going to hold the kid. “You’re okay.”

Peter isn’t sure. He’s exhausted and confused but something tells him this is right. He is safe.


End file.
